FanHouse Martinmayhew

Detroit tried to pretend that it could live without Matthew Stafford. The Lions let rumors swirl about them trading out of the No. 1 pick, taking an offensive tackle, even being satisfied with Aaron Curry.

Their deal with Stafford, announced late Friday night, makes all that seem ridiculous now. A 6-year contract potentially worth more than $70 million is not a deal struck out of reluctance or uncertainty. For better or worse, the Lions have made it known that Stafford is the guy they believe can turn around their franchise.

There is no turning back now -- the next six years of Detroit Lions football will be judged on what Stafford does.

Maybe he will go on to NFL greatness, but for now, Dan Orlovsky is best known as "that dude who ran out of the end zone for no apparent reason." The Lions' 2005 fifth-round pick, Orlovsky started started seven games at quarterback last season, but has decided to test the free-agent market instead of returning to Detroit.

It has less to do with the Lions' 0-16 putridity and more to do with the organization telling Orlovsky, in so many words, that there was a better chance he'd lead the league in rushing yards than win the starting quarterback job.

Lending credence to the widely held belief that Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford will be the first pick in the 2009 NFL draft, the general manager of the Detroit Lions has acknowledged that the time is right for the team to find its quarterback of the future.

General manager Martin Mayhew hedged a bit in his comments at the Indianapolis scouting combine, but the bottom line is that Detroit needs a quarterback and isn't confident in any of the passers already under contract to the team.

TAMPA, Fla. -- In talking to a cross-section of the National Football League intelligentsia over the last couple of days, one thing is clear: Almost everyone believes the Detroit Lions are planning to select Georgia quarterback Matthew Stafford with the first pick in the NFL draft.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to happen – remember when everyone thought the Texans would draft Reggie Bush? – but it does mean that other teams are getting prepared for the draft with the thought that the only way they can get Stafford is by trading up for the Lions' pick, something that few teams seem inclined to do.

Jim Schwartz, probably more than any other current NFL coach, uses advanced statistics to measure player performance. The former Georgetown economics major graduated third in his class, and he's a fan of Football Outsiders, basically the only site doing for football what Bill James did for baseball some 30 years ago.

Winning games comes down to more than running a few regressions and calling it a day; there's also the on-the-field stuff: blocking, throwing, tackling and, ultimately, coaching. Finding that balance is the key. And two days into the toughest gig in sports, Schwartz sounds like a man who knows what he's doing. Or at the very least, he's a fabulous salesman.

Detroit Lions owner William Clay Ford is incompetent. As the grandson of Henry Ford, he always has been and always will be a very rich man, but he's never accomplished anything in his life on his own merits, and in his 45 years owning the Lions, he has proven time and again that he hasn't a clue how to run a football team.

I thought everyone who followed football knew this, but apparently not. Peter King writes at SI.com that the football world is shocked -- shocked! -- by the latest example of Ford's incompetence:

I think no one in the league -- and I mean no one -- can believe William Clay Ford didn't move to hire a new GM (even though there is great respect for Martin Mayhew) and the front-office staff.

King is well connected in the NFL, and I guess all of his league sources are telling him they're surprised that Ford didn't overhaul his front office. But really, why would anyone expect Ford to do such a thing? What has Ford ever done that would make anyone expect him to suddenly make big changes to his franchise, after 45 years of being the worst owner in the NFL?

The bottom line is that as long as this man owns this team, this team is going to stink. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

I don't know enough about Tom Lewand or Martin Mayhew to comment on whether Lions owner William Clay Ford was wise to promote from within the organization, but history suggests that no one would've complained if Ford blew up the whole operation and started over.

The franchise has just 40 wins this decade, which is slightly more impressive when you consider that the total includes the recently completed 0-for-'08 run. (Not really; it works out to 5 wins a season versus 4.4 wins a season. In the salary-cap era, that blows.) Perhaps predictably, Clay decided to, as they say, stay the course and give current team employees Lewand and Mayhew shiny new titles.

Not surprisingly, the 2009 Lions look very similar to the versions that preceded it. Which is to say: unimpressive and out of sorts. Via PFT, the first post-Rod Marinelli press conference provided plenty of unintentional hilarity. Because after all, laughter -- even if accidental -- is the best medicine. Or something.

The 0-16 Lions have officially done it. This is 0for08, FanHouse's eye on the Detroit Lions and their quest for a winless season.

It had to end this way.

That is, to say, if this is actually the end.

The Lions are addicted to bad football. I've tried coming up with a justification for so many years of substandard play as well as faulty personnel moves on and off the field, and I've come to the conclusion that they're simply addicts. It doesn't make them bad people, it simply means that they've embraced what we deem destructive as suitable to their way of life. They are a gigantic failure of an organization comprised of hundreds of individual enablers.

This isn't to trivialize or poke fun at addictions of a much more serious nature -- addictions come in all shapes and sizes, from manageable to fatal, from heroin to Starbucks. This is a unique variety, and the Lions are deep in it. Those close to the team, as is always the case with addiction, have suffered the most, and they've tried all they could -- walkouts, websites, effigies -- to pull the Lions out of their hole. But the thing about addicts is that they have to recognize their problem, and that only usually comes when they've bottomed out, when they've fallen so far that they have to choose to embrace recovery.

As the first team to finish a season 0-16, it seems obvious that this Lions era has officially bottomed out. But do they think so?

When Mlive.com's Tom Kowalski writes that the Martin Mayhew -- the chap burdened with the impossible task of being less competent than Matt Millen -- is taking draft preparations seriously some five months before Roger Goodell starts reading names off a sheet of paper, pretty much tells you all you need to know about why the Lions are annually the worst team in football.

Millen had no business running a team (in case that wasn't obvious, the careers of Charles Rogers and Mike Williams confirm as much) and even though Mayhew is only the interim general manager, he has a chance to show he's capable of handling the full-time gig. (And when I say "handling" I mean in the conventional sense; not in the "Matt Millen shows up for work to catch up on his sleep" sense.)

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How will the Saints offense make up for the loss of Jamar Nesbit and Jeremy Shockey for the next month, especially with Marques Colston out? Do you see any receivers finally catching anything?
- J. Willits, Jackson, MS

The Saints have been debacled by injuries so far this year; one-fifth of the roster appeared on this week's injury report. Nesbit's suspension makes him the 11th starter from the presumed opening day roster to miss time this year. That being said, while it never helps to lose a starter, Nesbit's injury opens the door for coaches to get a look at Carl Nicks, the one-time Nebraska right tackle they drafted in the fifth round this year. Nicks was thought generally to have second- or third-round talent, but some trouble he got into in college, causing him to be banned from Nebraska's pro day, caused him to drop. He was converted to left guard in the offseason and coaches rave about the athletic ability he has for his size (6'5'', 343). Nesbit has been the weakest link on a line that has really performed poorly in the run game, so seeing what Nicks can do might prove to give the line a spark.

As far as the receivers are concerned, Robert Meachem is going to get increased looks, and rightfully so. He's only got three catches in two games, but they've totaled 105 yards and a touchdown, and all have been for first downs. Each catch has showed a flair for the ability to make plays. The Saints always find a way to move the ball through the air, so they'll put together a good enough attack to hold them over, but Meachem will work his way into the forefront. By the way, the Saints have San Francisco, Minnesota, and Oakland in the next few weeks, so their schedule is pretty favorable while everyone gets healthy.